My Brother's Keeper
by kygirl101
Summary: He...he did not wish this. Who would ever wish death upon their beloved twin! How...how could he! -How Yuui became Fai and how Fai met Ashura- Spoilers for Chapter 158.


_Right...So, you know how when you read manga and then some sort of characterization-realization just pops into your head? Well, let's just say I kinda have a pseudo-rotic love for the Celes Arc - it's just... I love Fai becoming so vulnerable, and although traumatic, his past is one of the coolest! Dun ask...it's a fangirly love. My second attempt at a Tsubasa fiction - Unbeta'ed - but enjoy~!_

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**My Brother's Keeper**

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Did he choose that...

Could he really have...

Was it even possible...

In this large, open grave, Yuui was sure he had never stopped thinking of Fai as a person - his person, himself on the outside as well as the in. But...if not...

This decision was... hasty. That man, staring at him from another place, another home, another world where they were (undoubtedly) unwelcome didn't seem to be lying. He had said 'choose' and...if the body soaking the trampled, slushy and slightly grey snow with crimson was any indication, he had chosen.

But...that wasn't...He hadn't wanted to...He would never, even subconsciously admit...Admit? No, admit to nothing! He would never, ever - not in a million years - not even considering that it was the fact that they had both lived and had both been born...

Wish death upon his twin.

"Fai..." His voice is cracked, broken. Raw from screams, yet hoarse with disuse. The snow is not cold under his already wet clothing, and he does not feel the numb creeping through his entire body; in fact, he already feels numb, shell shocked. Yuui can't feel the warm of Fai's blood, the chill already setting into his twin's skin. He cannot see any light reflected in Fai's eye, nor any trace of breath fluttering chapped lips. "Fai!"

Yuui closes his eyes - the man in the portal is showing him images of a young man and woman, seeming to float, suspended, as the stranger for-tells the three of them meeting. There is another person, too, a child who does not look much older than the twins. He, too, clutches the bloodied body of a loved one, looking crazed and demented and...sad.

"F..." he cannot bring himself to say the name again - his favorite name. Cold fingers clutch the back of the corpses shoulders, hugging the unresponsive body to his torso and burying his nose into the crook of an icy neck. Fai smells of sweat, dirt, salt-water-tears and, most pronouncedly, blood. But he also smells like Fai.

The stranger is still talking. And suddenly...It seems...Life replays itself.

"_Choose. You. Or the other one."_

_One breath. Two breath. Three breath. "...Me."_

"_YUUI!"_

There is a curse. The man tells him so as tiny, malnourished shoulder shake with the figurative weight of complete and utter despair. To kill anyone stronger than him - without any justification as to who that person is. Friend, foe, lover, family... But Yuui almost doesn't listen; people had always told him that he and Fai were the strongest and struck fear in the hearts of men just by breathing - that's why they had been locked away! And...if the mirror image had been the only one who could rival him in their magic...Hadn't he already fulfilled that part of the curse?

That man is gone now, a swift 'someone from another world will come and pick you up' his only farewell. Snow has ceased to fall, but is still heavily laden on the ground - not melting even when hot tears hit it.

Yuui is crying. Crying for the, crying for his twin, crying for his parents, his kingdom, even his deranged uncle who had banished them to this existence. But most of all, he is crying for the sheer sake of sobbing, unabashedly, into another shoulder - the shoulder of a dead brother. Who he had killed.

Time...ticks...by...Slowly, as ever...Valeria has the strangest sense of progression. And still he cries, even when there are no more tears and his body is as cold as the one he holds.

And then...

"I've come to take you away from here." It's a kind faced man - hair dark and long and not of this world. He is unearthly in beauty, and the voice that speaks so kindly to the gaunt and sunken faced child in the snow is one that radiates music and peace. He is holding himself as diplomate, and speaking to the boy not out of a portal as the first stranger had done, but on the same ground. Even so, Yuui did not even think of him as real.

"Are you from Hell?"

"No - from a different world."

"...I have a wish. There is something I must do." He said eventually, voice cracking from disuse. Fai's bloodied torso is still clutched to his chest, and Yuui is almost able to convince himself that the rise and fall of his own ribs is that of his twin, breathing, alive.

"...Then live for that; come with me, for the sake of your life, and fulfilling that wish." He is not the devil. He is lighter than that - angelic - and...kind. He extended a hand, an offering, seeming to sense the admiration in Yuui's eyes. "Then, shall we leave this place?"

He wants nothing more than to take it. Despite the seeming complexity of this man, what he was proposing was insanely easy. Still, with shaking, heavy hands, it takes all of Yuui's will power to take that extended hand - or to rather allow that hand to envelope his own in a warm cocoon of human skin, something he hadn't felt in...weeks? Months? Years? A...long time.

"Your name?"

His name. He doesn't deserve that which was given to him - he does not deserve even the faintest hint of recognition as the other twin. Yuui is the cursed one, the one who killed his brother. Yuui is unlucky, the remaining. Yuui is...dead. In his arms. Bleeding over his over large tunic while a warm, kind-hearted angel is holding his hands and gazing into his eyes as if he were human and worth this easy, fatherly smile.

"Fai..."

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_I paraphrased - I did not (at least intend to, if I did anyway) copy the dialogue completely - it was supposed to sound like I did, though. Anyway, I felt like doing one of these and I hope it didn't turn out too...cliche? Or just plain crappy? Loving reviews are adored! Adoring reviews are loved! And constructive critisism is loved and adored!!_


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